KNIGHT'S GAMBIT

Faulkner has produced in the past some of the most powerful, socially significant experimental writing that has come out of America — landmark in literature of the Deep South. But in this latest work one is aware of a blandness, a flatness that does not permit action to come through in a three-dimensional form. Dramatic power is cut to a minimum and with it, characterization and clarity... Like Eudora Welty, one of the South's most gifted young writers, Faulkner is difficult to place as to intent. In both Miss Welty's The Golden Apples and in Faulkner's Knight's Gambit, the material is held together in loose construction by use of the same locale and some major characters. But in contrast to Eudora Welty who is magnificently articulate and whose style is effective and dramatic, Mr. Faulkner appears to be standing still, wrapped in a kind of circular writing that generates little speed or force....Here are the mental acrobatics of one Uncle Gavin, County attorney in Jefferson, Mississippi, who is shrewd, intelligent (at least he has a Phi Beta Kappa key), garrulous though succinct, clear-headed and clever. How he handles the various criminal offenses in the County forms the material for these stories, and they deal with such things as justice, love, endurance, trickery and spite. (Could it be he wants to create another Mr. Tutt?) The enigmatic style is rather piquing, but the end impression is one of irritation.